Before we over-react I would be interested in hearing what some Navy FReepers have to say (if you are Navy, forgive my presumption but your profile doesn’t say it).
The article says that tradition is Seamen are buried where they fell. If that is so, then what is different about this set of our fallen? If not, doesn’t that present logistics difficulties?
I agree with your post#10. I’d be interesting in hearing from several different Navy FReepers on this one.
Well I did 24 years and the only time that I know of that we did not get the remains back to the families if they were completely lost at sea. I witnessed many souls coming back through Sigonella Naval Air Station from Iraq and Afghanistan to the family in the states. If a Sailor died on the ship (I was stationed on three), we would send them to their families. But I am not an expert of course but that is just my experience from 24 years.
All that's changed now. We leave NO ONE behind. That's as it should be.
I understand the DOD’s reluctance to set a precedence with this case, because it does cost a lot of money to recover remains and repatriate them. The DOD is facing tremendous budgetary issues now.
HOWEVER, ANY US serviceman who has GIVEN HIS LIFE for this country has the absolute right to be returned home, and we the protected have the moral obligation to do so, IMHO. Regardless of cost...they DIED so that we may live in FREEDOM...it is the LEAST we should do in order that they be properly honored and remembered. It is also very necessary, so that we will be reminded of real and true cost of that FREEDOM.
That being said, I see absolutely NO reason this cost should be foisted on the DOD. WHY CAN'T CONGRESS FUND THIS ENDEAVOR SEPARATELY IN A STAND ALONE BILL? Call it the 'We Will NEVER FORGET' Act or some such....I dare ANY congress critter to vote against it. This is something even the Obamination wouldn't be able to veto.
BUT - IIRC - all the US Vets who died and were buried at Iwo Jima were later dug up and re-buried in Hawaii.
So relocating deceased is NOT NOTHING NEW!!!!
The Navy searched REAL HARD to find the grave of John Paul Jones ...found him in Paris, France (where he had died around 1792) - and the body was disinterred and brought back to the US. It now resides below the Chapel at the United States Naval Academy.
BTW - the Naval Academy also has a nice (but very worn) monument to an almost 200 year old monument to Sailors who died in the Barbary Coast wars:
“The Tripoli Monument is one of the oldest monuments in the country, and it is currently residing right here at the Naval Academy. It was originally commissioned by Commodore David Porter, who served in the Barbary Wars and later became a hero of the War of 1812 as commander of USS Essex. Sculpted in Italy, it was brought to the United States aboard the USS Constitution in September 1808 for placement in the Washington Naval Yard. There it remained until 1835, when it was moved to the U.S. Capitol building. Finally it was moved to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1860, where it was moved twice more before finding its current home.
‘’It probably holds the record for ‘most-moved monument’ in American history,’’ said James Cheevers, Associate Curator of the Naval Academy Museum.
The six names on the memorial itself are all officers who died in separate actions against the Barbary pirates in 1804, specifically attacks on the city of Tripoli in what is now Libya. Capt. Richard Somers, Lts. James Caldwell, James Decatur and Henry Wadsworth, and Midshipmen Joseph Israel and John Dorsey are immortalized on all four sides of the monument.”
MY THOUGHTS - BRING OUR DEAD HOME!!! Especially from Libya!
(BTW - I am the 2nd generation in my family who served in the Navy - with a son now serving on board the USS Virgina, SSN 774)